The Habsburg Dynasty acquired the Dychy of Styria 1276/1282, the Duchy of Carniola 1282/1335, the Duchy of Carinthia 1335
Triest in 1382. From 1411 to 1457 this complex of territories, referred to as Inner Austria, was ruled by a sideline of the Habsburg
Dynasty.
Inner Austria was a complex of territories held together by the person respectively dynasty of their rulers. When the sideline
ended in 1457, Inner Austria became part of the larger complex of territories ruled by the Habsburg Dynasty. Within Inner Austria,
the component territories (Carinthia, Carniola, Habsburg Istria, Triest, Styria) maintained their politica institutions (the estates),
laws and privileges.
Inner Austria had an ethnically mixed population, comprising of Germans, dominant in most of Carinthia and Styria, as well
as in the Gottschee enclave and the cities of southern Styria and Carniola, the Slovenians dominant in countryside Carniola,
Istria as well as in southern Styria and parts of Carinthia, and the Italians, dominant in the coastal cities (Triest). Feudal society
was stratified into nobility - largely German, partially of Slovenian origin, assimilated into German
culture, burghers of the cities (mostly Germans respectively Italians), free farmers (Germans in Carinthia, Styria) and the
bulk of serfs - to whom the mass of the Slovenian population, but also German peasants belonged.
The Patriarch of Aquileja, the Archbishop of Salzburg, the Bishops of Brixen, Freising, Passau owned patches of territory
scattered over Inner Austria; the larger part of Istria belonged to the Republic of Venice.